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Sunday, December 13, 2015

Like the Christmas season wasn’t elfing stressful enough. Now,
there’s a magical elf in the house that supposedly reports to Santa every gosh
darn night in December – or at least most nights -- and changes places upon its
return.What an elfing awesome idea! Thanks so much to the magical
creators from the North Pole who came up with this challenging addition to our holiday
routine. We really needed this wakeup call, this extra check on our
attentiveness, this daily reminder that we are far from the parents we set out to
be each day.For the record, our family resisted this elfing movement for
many years. We did. Then last year, as the kiddos exchanged their traditional Christmas
Eve secret Santa gifts, one sibling got the other a brand spanking new Elf on
the Shelf.So, our introduction into
elf-on-the-shelfdom officially happened on December 24, 2014. The elf’s arrival
initially set off a bit of family squabbling over whether to name him Abraham
or Stanley. Why either name was the choice, I have no idea. A compromise was
reached, and he was promptly named “Abraham Stanley.”

Our boring Elf on the Shelf, boringly sitting on a boring shelf, where he'll likely be for more than one morning in a row.

That very night, Santa came to our house and picked up
Abraham Stanley and took him back to the North Pole, as the legend goes, until
the next holiday season. (And by legend I mean the instructions in box he came
in).From last Christmas until this December, Abraham Stanley hasn’t
caused us any trouble, spending the better part of the year with his friends
and colleagues at Santa’s Workshop. Then, on December 1st of this
year, he magically arrived on a shelf in our once happy home. Now each morning
begins with a frantic kid-led search for our little yuletide spy. That search is
often preceded by a frantic parent moment where one of us asks the other, did
the elf move? It's amazing how this little question, which I had never asked before this year, can now shake me to my parental core.Despite our united focus on this nightly task, and the google
calendar alert set to 5:00 a.m. each day that simply reads, “Elf,” our little Abraham
Stanley doesn’t always move. He’s a bit
of a slacker, really. And that has left the kids a bit perplexed.Apparently, he’s also not the most creative elf in the world.
The kids regularly come home from school with stories of how other elves in the
neighborhood always do funny things, having tea with dinosaurs and toilet
papering the doll house. Ours just sits on shelves and atop rather predictable book
cases.“Why is Abraham Stanley so boring?” one of them asked me the
other morning. Dagger. Like I said, the only thing our elf does consistently is serve
as a daily reminder that we are just hanging on as parents.Not to deflect the criticism, but I think I know why he’s such a slacker. Let’s face it, any
elf worth their salt spends December working on a serious toy production
deadline. This whole Elf of the Shelf mass arrival is really just Santa’s – or someone
else’s – plan to clean out the elf riff-raff.Personally, I’d like to send all these little red interlopers back where
they came from.Oh no. I think my
frustration with Abraham Stanley has led me to go full Trump on these holiday
helpers.But honestly, we really don’t need their help. The mere
threat that “Santa is watching” has worked to keep our kids on the straight and
narrow – a few weeks a year, anyway – for as long as we’ve had kids. Having a
physical presence on the premises only moves the good behavior needle a fraction, while causing more grief than anything. Our Elf on the Shelf is just not elfing worth the
hassle.I know darn well there are many parents who’ve complained
about these magical little additions to the Christmas rigmarole before.And maybe we can’t just deport all the elfs
currently in homes across the nation. But something needs to be done.Because we simply don’t need more elfing stress this time of year. So, here’s my message to all the parents who have yet to go down the Elf on the Shelf rabbit hole: resist it. This is one new tradition that just isn't sustainable. To the parents who go over the top with your elf-written poems and hilarious antics: please tone it down a bit. I shouldn't have to resort to Pinterest to figure out which crazy predicament Abraham Stanley is going to be found in tomorrow morning.

And, to all the Elves on Shelves and the institutions pushing them on overstressed families everywhere: “Elf Off!”I sure hope Abraham Stanley doesn’t read this.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

“I think it pooped everywhere!” My wife exclaimed, aghast,
looking at scores of tiny black pellets strewn about our foyer and staircase.
Not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear on a relaxing fall weekend
morning.

“No … those are nuts,” I responded, based on reason and the
sound made when the shower of tiny particles exploded a few steps up the stairs
from our front door.

“What?”

“You know, like sunflower seeds.”

Our 12-year-old, wise in the ways of animal culture, added,
“They gather nuts in their cheeks for winter, mom.”

“Nuts?!”

Yes. Nuts. That’s the only way to describe a recent morning
in our usually quiet home, on our quiet street, in our quiet little village --
absolutely nuts.

To explain, I should probably back up a bit.

If you’d visited our street just an hour earlier, you
would’ve found our front door and screen wide open,with our big, cushy over-sized and
over-priced armchair in the front yard on its side with me poised above it with
my eyes bulging out and a fishing net in hand ready to pounce.

Our family adopted Luna about two years ago. Since then
she’s asserted herself as an outdoor cat, and she’s also grown into quite the able
hunter. Her prey of choice: chipmunks. If I could catch fish as efficiently as
she catches chipmunks I’d get sponsors and join the professional fly fishing
tour. She often returns after a brief stint outside with a chipmunk, mouse or
mole in her clutches, pawing at the door to show us her kill. Though, ironically,
she doesn’t always kill them – at least, not at first. And I often intervene
before she finishes the job. When I see her in the yard with a creature in her
mouth, I’ll chase her and, when I can catch her, pick her up.She’ll drop her new toy and, though sometimes
they land with a thud, nine times out of ten the rodent will hit the ground and
scamper off into the nearest underbrush. She always looks at me like, “What’d
you go and do that for?!”

Chipmunk, with cheeks full of nuts and seeds, rubs
his hand together while doing an evil laugh.

It’s not like I’m a chipmunk pacifist, I just find it easier
and cleaner to break things up at that point than to be stuck getting rid of
the body later, which I have to do often. Trust me; there’s a small stack of
formerly cute little carcasses behind the stone wall in our back yard. So, I try to step in early when possible.

On this particular morning, I was in the garage preparing to
do still more yard work. My wife and eldest daughter were out shopping for something
critically important, I’m sure. As I came out of the garage with a rake, or
shovel, or something yardy in hand, I saw Luna jog by me with a little furry
ball hanging from her teeth.

I sprang into action.

Unfortunately, just as I sprang my youngest daughter came
bounding out the front door, and prancing in went Luna with her chipmunk.

NO! I shrieked in my head.And in that moment, I prayed the little guy was dead.

Before I was in the door, I learned my prayers had gone
unanswered. Luna dropped the very much alive chipmunk, and it scurried into the
corner of our living room. Game on.

She flew toward it, rearing up and lunging with her
cute little paws extended like the villain from a jump-scare movie.The chipmunk, let’s just call him Chip,
darted left, then right, and found himself behind a floor-length curtain –
momentarily safe. Luna circled around, playfully padding at the curtain from
one side and the next.

This continued for what felt like an eternity.

While the animals danced their deadly tango, the children
screamed, scattered and climbed on the furniture like 1950s housewives with a
mouse afoot.

“It could have rabies!”They each screamed in one version or another.

In that moment I thought how I hadn’t written any blog post
lately. Not for total lack of content, mind you, just nothing had occurred to
compel me to break through the daily grind long enough to put pen to
paper.Apparently, my inaction had upset
the blog gods. And now their wrath was raining down on me with material I
couldn’t ignore. I was witnessing, without a doubt, a “blogworthy” event
unfolding in my living room. And it would only get better.By better, of course, I mean worse.

Always calm under duress, I began dispensing orders.

Sadie stop screaming rabies and open the front door!

Drew get upstairs and stay on the bed!

Chloe, get to the basement and find an empty laundry basket!

I was going to catch the darn thing or shoo it out the door
trying.

“But I’m afraid!” Chloe replied.

Of what? The basement or the rabid chipmunk!?

She pointed to the basement.

Fine, Sadie go with Chloe to the basement, I barked as I
kept an eye on the chipmunk’s little toes sticking out from under the curtain.
To think my kids used to stand in the same spot during hide and seek. For the
record, I could see them then, too.

When Chloe emerged from the basement she had the tiniest box
she could find.She clearly didn’t
understand my plan.I sent her again for
a LAUNDRY BASKET while I kept my eyes on Chip.

She finally came back with a laundry basket, but it happened
to be the only one in the house with wide two inch slots in the side -- clearly
not chipmunk impervious. In her defense, it was likely the only empty one in
the house, too.

Forget it, I said. And I took my eyes off the cornered
rodent long enough to sprint to the garage and grab my fishing net.When I came back to the living room, where I’d
left the Luna and Chip 23 seconds before, the cat was just walking around the
big cushy chair that sits a few feet from the curtain.

“Where’s the chipmunk?” I asked, as shrill as I’d ever asked
anything of a cat.

Luna just kept pacing
around the chair and looking confused.

I looked behind the curtain. Nothing.And the next curtain. Nothing. The corners of
the room. Nothing. Under the chair. Nope. The couch. Clear. I kept crawling around
the room like a mad man. The cat sat down, looking at me, and then she started
licking her underside like there wasn’t a live rodent loose in our living room.
Eff-ing cats.

The trail had gone cold. I deduced that there was only three
things that could have occurred while I was momentarily out of the room.The first theory, and most hopeful, was that
it had run through the living room and out the propped-open front door without
the cat noticing. Unlikely, but hopeful.The second, that it had scurried behind any number of pieces of
furniture and floor-length curtain and was hiding in this room or another. Or
the third, that it had found a way into the underside of the big cushy chair –
which has some holes on its underside thanks to Luna’s other bad habits – and
had climbed up inside the interior architecture of its oversized framework. I
decided that was the most likely.

I promptly carried the chair out the front door, with the
help of a reluctant daughter, and set it on its side so that a rodent could
climb easily out of one of the underside holes.Then I watched it.And watched
it. For some reason I still had my fishing net poised over it, like I had some
reason to catch chip outside.

This lasted until it became clear it was about to rain. The
raindrops were the real clue. So I
carried the chair back inside with the help of a neighbor who’d come over to
check on my sanity.

Time passed.The wife
came home. I explained the predicament. She laughed and moaned.

We looked online and the good people of the internet told us
to leave a door open, because chipmunks often let themselves out. So the front
remained opened as we tried to go back to our lives with Chip missing, last
seen in our living room.

And that’s when our wonderful, little cat strolled back in
the open door carrying yet another chipmunk in her mouth. We’ll call this one
Dale.

I could tell right away that Dale was still alive, as I saw
his tail unfurl then furl like a paper noisemaker.

Already on alert, the family sprang into action. We all took
up positions in the hall and at entrances to various rooms all trying to steer
the cat away and herd her out the door. We were cowboys with a loose steer,
though many of us looked more like rodeo clowns when the cat and her catch got
near.

She tried to dart left to the living room. Blocked. She
tried to the kitchen and family room. Blocked, herded and harassed.She ran back toward the open front door, and
then took a hard right and headed up the stairs.

“Luna! … No!” my wife let out a guttural call.

I sprinted up the stairs behind the cat and corned her in
one of the bedrooms.Dale was still in
her mouth, looking at me with its frightened eyes and puffed out cheeks.

I slowly approached the cat, and picked her up gently making
certain not to entice her to drop the rodent.I held her carefully in front of me and walked briskly toward the staircase.
We made it halfway down the stairs when Dale saw the light of the door and gave
a productive shake, falling from the cat’s mouth and landing with an explosion
on the fifth stair from the bottom.The chipmunk
hadn’t exploded, but the contents of its cheeks had.

Dale was very much alive. And we all watched frozen as he scampered
and scurried toward the open door, his rear legs swinging and swerving widely
like a drag racer on wet pavement. Then, he was gone.

Two chipmunks came into our house, and one certainly
left.All we had to show for it was a
pile of nuts.

In other news, if your family’s interested in a cat, I know one
that’s free to a good home, has all her shots, and excels at catching mice …
and chipmunks.

Monday, October 12, 2015

“Do we have to go?”“I hate hikes.”“How far is it to the top, dad?”“I need a hiking stick.”“Can I have a piggy back?”“She hit me with her stick!”“Do you think we’re halfway yet?”"He fell."“I’m okay … I’m tough”"Wanna trade walking sticks?"

“I wish this was flatter.”“Maybe we should go back.”“Did we take a wrong turn?”“Is this the top, yet?”“This is sooo farrrr.”“Ugh!”“I think I see the top.”“C’mon … race you.”“Can I have the camera?”

“How high are we?”“Did you bring snacks?”“I want the red water bottle.”“There are so many lady bugs. Do they bite?”“Ahh! One bit me!”“I hate lady bugs!”“Can we go, please?”“I want to go that way.”“Please can we go that way.” “You are the least fun dad ever.”“I’m hungry.”“First one to catch a falling leaf wins.”“How much farther to the car?”“I’m tired.”“I caught a leaf!”“Everyone has caught a leaf but me.”“Owie, Owie, Owie! Daddy, Daddy. Daddy!“Can you carry me?”“Do we have Band Aids in the car?”“I think I can make it.”“This is so steep. Did we walk up this?” “Can we go to the waterfall before we leave?”“Can I go behind the waterfall?”“We’ll be fine!”“How about only people 12 and older can go behind the waterfall?”“That’s not fair.”“We’ll be safe, I promise.”“Can I go too, daddy?”“I’m scared.”“She pushed me.”“We’re so high!”“This is amazing!”“Can I have the camera?”

Saturday, August 29, 2015

One cool thing about my kids growing up is that the older
ones are finally ready to appreciate the finer things in life, like the many ridiculous and
essential comedies that shaped their dad’s strange view of the world and sense
of humor.

Recently I sat down with my eldest for a movie night, after
convincing her she just had to watch Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail. It
was touch and go. She laughed at first, but fell asleep halfway through, right
about when Sir Robin’s minstrels meet their fate (Yay!). We tried again a few
nights later, and she made it to the end. She professed to love it. I figured
she was humoring her old man.

A few days later I cut myself slicing
vegetables, and she told me it was just a flesh wound. I laughed and smiled
deep within – while I bandaged my finger.

Finally, I had someone else in my house who knew the answer
to the age old question: What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

I realized, watching that movie was about more than simple
father-child bonding – it was showing her a bit of who I am and why, and it was
adding her to a secret world of quotes and quips of which only my siblings and select
friends are members.

It got me thinking about the many movies my kids need to
watch to truly “get me” -- me, as in their dad. Not all of these movies are appropriate
yet.But here’s the list, anyway. It’s
likely a similar list to that of many other dads of my vintage:

1.Monty Python’s Quest For the Holy Grail

2.Monty Python’s Life Of Brian

3.Airplane

4.National Lampoon’s Vacation

5.Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

6.Steve Martin’s The Jerk

7.The Three Amigos

When they’re a little
older

8.Sixteen Candles

9.Naked Gun

10.Blazing Saddles

11.This is Spinal Tap (you knew it had to be 11)

12.Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

13.Mel Brooks: History of the World Part I

14.Austin Powers

I’ve decided to make these movies a requirement of graduation from my
house. So before any of them go off to college and out into the cruel and funny
world, they have to watch all these fine films. Preferably with me. If not, they
will be suspended over a pool of sharks with laser beams attached to their
heads. … Or, ill-tempered sea bass, depending on what’s available.

Monday, August 17, 2015

This is a note to all the husbands (and wives and partners) of a parent
who spent a few years at home, working or just parenting, while looking after the
kiddos, only to return to an office job once those children grew. Please support
them. Because, it’s a heartbreaking transition returning to work.

I know, because I just did it. And it’s hard. Really hard.

Our family’s story is a bit unique, as everyone’s is, I
guess. For the past five years, since just
before our fourth child and only son was born, I’ve worked from home as a
consultant, freelance writer and adjunct professor. The work went through ebbs and flows, making
me extremely busy at times and not terribly busy other times. My wife’s work-from-home
job (I know, two work-from-homers is not exactly normal) was far more
structured, requiring her to be at her desk or on conference calls all the darn
time. Meaning that, for the past five years, I’ve been the parent of record.

A random and typical photo of my kids,
representing the last five years -- and the future.

I’ve been the one in our house at home watching after the
kids when they’re not at school, making bag lunches in the morning, grocery
shopping in the afternoon, playing in the yard after school, and preparing dinner way too late, pretty much everything
but the laundry – which is a whole other story -- and working a close to full-time as possible myself, fitting my career in on the fringes of life. When I wasn’t working
or tending to kids, I was usually driving them places: to pre-school, to playdates, to parks, to day camp, to birthday
parties, to soccer practice. If they had someplace to go, Dad’s was usually driving
– sometimes while on a conference call of my own.

I remember one time pacing in the front parking lot of a
Chuck-E-Cheese, on a particularly tense conference call, while one of my
daughters, her friends and all the other parents in attendance partook in the
festivities. They probably thought I was a jerk, but I was just trying to balance
my career and my family. And, for the last five years, I’d been able to do that
while mostly being at home. Not too far from my kids.

It wasn’t always that way.

During the first seven years of our child-rearing experiment
(our oldest daughter was born 12 years ago) I was the part-time parent; A
weekend warrior. I worked 40-, 50-, 60-hour weeks well away from home, and fit in the parenting around
the fringes, usually seeing our growing number of kids during their awful
bedtimes or on the weekends that always felt too short.

Back then, it was my wife who bore the primary parenting
responsibility, while balancing work and family from her home office. She was the one who made all the tough
transitions, from full-time worker, to maternity leave, to part-time worker, to
maternity leave, to contract worker, etc.

The pain in her transitions is something I never thought of
when I was the one working an office job full-time. I imagine, most working spouses
of homebound parents likely don’t think about the transitions either. If anything, we’re a little jealous of the whole arrangement.

But I can tell you, it is hard. It’s hard to go from a
stay-at-home mom, or stay-at-home dad, or a work-at-home-parent back to a
nine-to-fiver. It’s hard to think that your time at home with the
little ones is really over. It’s hard to
watch your little baby turn five, and know that those years went by in a blink.
It’s hard to think that all those hours, days, months, and years, where you sat
on park benches and on a practice sideline, begrudging being around your children all the dang time, that those times
are now over. And you’re back at the water cooler. Commuting. Working all day. And
living for weekends that are simply too short.

It is hard.

Here’s a confession: the morning that marked my return to
the office routine, I sat down after my shower on the closed toilet in our
bathroom, with a towel, a t-shirt, and a toothbrush, and I cried.

Me. A grown man. A grizzled veteran dad. I cried. Heck, I
bawled. The end of this era hit me. My time at home was over.

I thought about that fact that some of my kids didn’t
remember the days when I wasn’t around. And I knew some of them might not
remember the days when I was.

Yep. I cried.

(By the way, If my current boss reads this part, I don’t want
them to mistake that sadness for regret about this new job. In truth, I am
grateful, both for the chance to work from home for the past five years and for
the opportunity to return to the workplace.)

I know I am lucky. Lucky I have these wonderful kids and a
wife who still professes to love me. Lucky to have a good job when so many
others–moms and dads–struggle to get back into the workplace.

But I do regret that time has traveled past me so fast, that
my children have grown so quickly, and that I can’t seem to slow this world
down no matter what drastic steps I take to do so.

To everyone who is at home with the kids, parenting full-time
or working from home, I say, find a way to appreciate what you do have: Time.
Time with your kids. It is the most precious thing we have.

And, to everyone who lives with someone who made the
sacrifice of staying home for the kids' formative years, only to return to the work
routine, know that it is harder than it looks. So support them.

Many moms (and dads) who've done it already know this: but it is a heartbreaking
good fortune, returning to work.

Friday, July 24, 2015

I relearned an important lesson this week: With kids, sometimes you have to follow through on all those threatened
consequences. If you keep telling them you’re going to turn the car
around if they don't behave, and never actually turn the car around when they continue
to act like … well, children, they will
learn that the car isn’t going to get turned around no matter what they do.This may seem obvious. It's straight from the parenting 101 books
that I failed to read when I first started taking this experiential course in child-rearing a dozen years ago. But, I’ve been told lately that I’m not very good at this
whole follow through thing.

It’s not like I go around making threats to my kids. Sometimes
they act like insane little monsters, and the fear of sanctions is the only way I
can think of to get them to behave. So, threats happen. Take, for instance, a dinner out I had on a recent night with two
of our kids and their grandparents.

My wife is out of town with our two middle kids visiting her
sister, so I have responsibility for our 5-year-old boy and 12-your-old
daughter for the week. My parents, fresh back from a summer trip to Michigan
and Canada, called and asked if we wanted to have dinner at
a neat little seafood place.

Sure, I figured. Why not?

What I didn’t figure was that, after a week with his father’s
later bedtimes and lack of disciplinary follow-through, the 5-year-old boy would
be primed and ready for his worst restaurant behavior in recent memory.

Usually, with his middle sisters around, he just blends into
our family’s typical restaurant commotion and acts kid-like but within
acceptable parameters.

No such luck for our evening at the quant little seafood
place.He was standing on the booth
seat, under the table kicking people, blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk, dribbling water out of his mouth, then spitting
water out of his mouth, and screaming “What?”
at the top of his lungs like he was shocked to hear something as a way to humorously
add to the adult conversation. It wasn’t funny.I warned him several times that if he didn’t act better, we
would leave the restaurant.Only one problem with my threat: I was trapped in the
interior of the booth, and I was hungry. I guess that’s two problems. But, it’s notlike threatening to take him out of church when he acts up, which I
always follow through on because who wouldn’t rather be walking around outside
a church than inside it doing Catholic calisthenics on hard, wooden benches. Sit.
Stand. Kneel. Sit. Stand. Kneel.That’s
an easy follow through. But I really didn’t want to leave the restaurant and my
soon to be arriving crab-stuffed baked sole. (Apparently, my sole is more important to me
than my soul. But that’s not the point).So, despite repeated threats to go to the car that evening with
the misbehaving boy, we didn’t leave. His behavior never improved, though we
survived, and later that night he fell
asleep, finally granting me peace.It served as a perfect example of me not following through on
a threatened sanction, and I knew it.Thank
goodness my wife wasn’t there to witness the affair.Anyway, I resolved to do better next time.That next time arrived sooner than expected, when two days later I picked up the boy and his sister at
the separate day camps they attend in the mornings and decided to
take them to lunch.As always, the kids picked Panera. Those grilled cheese sandwiches
must have kid crack in them, I swear.

Consider this a warning to everyone, if you kick me in the shins you will not get a grilled cheese. ... I mean it.

We arrived just after high noon. Like every Panera in the
lower 48 at that time of day, there was a long line of people waiting to order overpriced,
small portions of fast casual goodness. So good, I usually leave still hungry, yet noticeably poorer.

Waiting in line, the boy kept trying to jump up and grab my neck.
I’m tall enough that he had no chance. But he kept at it.

“Stop that or we’re leaving.”

Then he started pushing his big sister.

“I’m warning you, boy,” I snarled.

Then he kicked me in the shins.

That was it. I grabbed him firmly by the arm – not too
firmly – and told him he’d been warned and now we were leaving.

Then we left. We actually left.

“I’ll listen! I’ll listen!” he wailed as we walked across
the parking lot to our car. He was certainly expecting us to turn around and go
back into Panera. But I kept right on
going; into the car and back to the house.

He cried the whole way.I made him a much cheaper version of a grilled cheese at home and, after
his fit died down a bit, he ate it.

Of course, leaving Panera for me was about as hard as leaving
church -- an easy threat to make good on. It was also easier to enforce with just two kids
in tow.If I’ve got four hungry kids and
a hungry wife, I’m not likely to drag all of them back to the car because the
boy is acting up. There’s too much potential for collateral suffering.Years ago, I remember leaving a grocery cart full of stuff and walking out with one wailing child -- who happens to now be twelve. But in the time since, I must've softened to the point where I developed a no-follow-through reputation.Not anymore.

I don’t know if this one bit of follow through will work to curb
future bad behavior. But it sure seems to have had an impact. He’s
mentioned the episode several times since. I think he's still shocked that we
actually left.

And, if I have to make the threat to leave again and he doesn’t
listen, you can bet I will make good on it. I just hope it’s at Panera and not
a quaint little seafood joint.

Friday, May 29, 2015

What possessed 15 dads, most of whom can’t sing a lick or
dance very well beyond the occasional “sprinkler” move, to get on a stage in
front a few hundred friends, family, and neighbors on a recent Spring night and
generally make fools of themselves? Did I mention that some were wearing
princess dresses?So, why exactly would grown men act this way?

The answer’s quite simple. But the impact is kind of profound.

I heard about this annual school event, called “Dad's
Night,” from one of the few friends I’d made over the years on my many trips to
open-houses and other parental events at the local elementary school.
He’d participated in Dad's Night the previous year and convinced me to attend
an informational meeting last Fall to learn more.

What I learned: Dad's Night is an annual skit show organized,
written, and performed by willing fathers whose kids go to our local public elementary
school.

A skit show? I thought at the time. As in, on stage?

For the record, I really don’t like to be the center
attention. It may sound weird coming from a guy who regularly puts his soul
down on paper – or on transmittable digital bytes – to be broadcast to the
world (at least conceivably).But it’s
true. I hate it.

Worst of all, I hate the thought of being on a stage in
front of people. It’s just not my thing. I’m much more a behind the scenes kind
of guy.

I'm the Elsa that looks more like Fiona

But, they say life begins where your comfort zone ends. I
read that recently. It may have been a poster with a kitten on a tree branch. Not
almost falling off the tree branch; that’s a “Never Give Up” poster.But just a kitten on a tree branch,
ostensibly branching out, I guess.Or
maybe it was a guy clinging to the side of a cliff with just a few carabiners
separating him from certain death. In any event, you get the point. “Life
begins where your comfort zone ends.”

For me, the border of my comfort zone lies somewhere between
the closed curtain and the open stage.

Still, as I thought about our local Dad's Night, I figured I
could at least help write some of the skits.

Besides, it’s tough for dads to meet other dads through their
kid’s school. Women are far better at bridging that divide and making friends
with the moms they see at pick-up and drop-off. For dads, even those like me
who do a fair share of picking up and dropping off, it can be very tough. Many of us just don’t see each other often
enough to gain a familiarity. Even when we do, it can be limited to head nods at
the annual curriculum night, or handshakes at the school carnival.

Befriending other school dads has always been near
impossible for me, and I imagine for many other dads. Because of it, I’ve never
really looked forward to school events, filled with awkward head nods and occasional
sports banter.

If nothing else, I figured this experiment would
give me a chance to actually meet and get to know some other dads.

So beginning last Fall, I started attending Dad's Night planning
and writing sessions every few weeks to talk about what exactly we were going
to do in the Spring show.

It proved a nice escape from the house – I work from home,
mostly, which is not as awesome as it sounds. And in the process I started to get to know
this strange and funny group of guys. (Not an insult. I like strange and funny,
and aspire to be both).

As winter crept by, the writing sessions became weekly
rehearsals. At one point, in my naiveté, I’d hoped only to write. But as a
rookie, I was quickly pulled fully into the production and even given lines –
at least in the skit I wrote. I ended up
even volunteering – along with a few other guys -- to wear an Elsa dress for a Halloween
skit and a few other scenes just to reduce my chances of getting more lines.

For a few months, each Sunday evening we gathered and laughed
and worked out the kinks in our show. Occasionally we grabbed a beer after our
meetings. Only occasionally.

As Spring grew closer, the nerves set in. Restful sleeps were
broken by images of a Middle School auditorium filled with parents and kids
that sounded like a field of crickets as my lines were delivered. I wasn’t alone in my fears, and found that several
other dads shared the phobia. Some others didn’t and seemed to thrive on the thought
of being up there. But most of us were scared.

As show night loomed closer, our weekly rehearsals became
daily ones.Anxiety grew. And I got thinking: what the heck are we
doing? Why are we subjecting ourselves to near certain humiliation and
potential doom?

Then, two days before the show, it became clear.It happened when my third grader, who battles
a level of shyness herself, came skipping home, proud as could be, that her dad
was actually going to be in Dad's Night. She was practically a celebrity in her class because
of it.

So, why would 15 grown men get up in front of their
community to potentially make fools of themselves? The same
reason we do most silly things: to make our kids laugh.

Show night came. And we danced. We sang. We dressed as Elsas.
All in front of a packed house (it was a school auditorium, but I wanted to say that). I got most of my lines right. And there were no cricket noises – except that one joke I wrote.But otherwise, it was a success.

To put it mildly, we rocked it. My kids haven’t stopped laughing and talking
about it yet, and it’s been a few weeks.

The bonus: Well, it’s as one of the other dads said, when
you go through something intense and stressful with a group, it can create a
unique bond.

By exiting my comfort zone and entertaining my kids, I also got to
know this great group of strange and funny guys. Now, I’m one of them.

And I’m looking forward to the next school gathering, complete
with a lot more head nods and sports banter.

If
your children's school doesn’t do something like Dads’ Night. It should.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The boy is four years old.Four and a half, as he’s quick to correct. Yet we still struggle
mightily with how to discipline him. He literally thinks everything is a joke.
And I am using the word literally as it is supposed to be used.

We aren’t rookie parents. He’s our fourth. Of course, we’re
not the best at all aspects of parenting (ahem… bedtime). But we aren’t new to
our struggles. Figuring out how to get him to take us seriously – to take
anything seriously – is a great challenge.

“You lost dessert when you took your pants down at the table.”

I actually said that to him after dinner one day recently.In the middle of our meal, sometime after the
prayer and before his sisters scattered to the wind, the boy mooned the
table.As the girls all laughed,
including his mother in a seriously-suppressed sort of way, I told him that it
wasn’t funny to moon the table.

“Then why is everybody
laughing?”

A fair question. One
I didn’t have an immediate answer to. But it got me thinking, again, about the
great trouble we face with him. How do we get this little guy to realize that
life isn’t all one big joke?And just as
importantly, why exactly do I have to teach him that?

Our boy turns five this summer, something he’s been looking
forward to since he turned four.He’s a
great kid, he tells you he loves you, says thank you and sorry at appropriate times,
and offers hugs without request.He’s
smart, calling out the answers to his older sister’s math problems as she tries
to figure them on paper.He’s fast, too.
Super fast, as he likes to say. (He’s actually normal speed, but thinks he’s
like a rocket; don’t tell him otherwise).

But when it comes to discipline, he’s kind of like
Peter Pan probably was at four. He just doesn’t
get it. When I go to put him in timeout, it invariably becomes a game of chase,
with him laughing and squealing and letting out a guttural “AHHHHHH” like PeeWee Herman being chased by a
friendly bear.

This all matters because in a few short months this boy of
ours will go to kindergarten. Full day no less.

It’s time for him to grow up.Yet … I don’t want him to.

It makes me wonder where all the time has gone. And why the
heck it’s gone so fast.And how it all
seems like such a blur. I remember the first time we put a kid on the bus to go
to Kindergarten. My wife bawled. I didn’t. I stood stoically and watched. Then
I went to work. When the next two got on that bus when it was their turn, my
wife cried again. I didn’t.

When he gets on the bus, I think am going to. I know it. Not
because he’s the baby, or the boy (I don’t think like that), but because he’s the
last.

For the past 12 year we’ve had little ones who needed us
each day, to take care of and feed and clothe and wipe. For a good part of
that, we’ve worked, sending them to the sitter, or to pre-school, or to some
camp for half a day.

Always we hoped that we’d get to the point where one of us
could stay home and just be the parent. It never happened.And soon, they won’t need us to. As my wife
muttered after she filled out the kindergarten paperwork for the boy, it’s
gone.

People told us to cherish it, like we tell other parents to.
But did we? Did we? Heck, I can barely remember all of it.

I know there’s a lot more parenting left to do, and a lot
more time with our little people before they go off to college. But if it’s
anything like the last 12 years, it’s going to fly by and become a blur.

And that’s why it’s so hard to teach this boy that his
antics aren’t funny. Because they are. And I want them always to be.

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About Me

I'm a writer, a husband and a father of four. I once worked in news in Washington, D.C., and served as a speechwriter for a spell. Now I work in upstate New York, teach and help raise our kids. This is where I write about it.